Health services research has been defined as a “multidisciplinary field of scientific inquiry that studies how social factors, financing systems, organizational systems processes, health technologies and personal behaviors affect access to care, the quality and cost of health care, and, ultimately our health and well being.” But health services research differs from other areas of research in that there is a conscious effort made to ensure that the research translates into changing practice. That is, an explicit goal of health services research is to make the results pertinent to stakeholders, be they policy makers, clinicians or the public, so as to have a positive impact on the delivery of health services to the public.

The purpose of this course is to provide an introduction into foundations, tools and techniques used by researchers to examine health services. We will focus on four topics: quality of care, access to services, and cost/expenditure on health services, and translation/dissemination of research. Our discussions and readings will cover analysis of routinely collected data, interpretation and presentation of results to stakeholders and implications for changing practice.